As the ideological pillar of modern Japan's imperial system, the Imperial Rescript on Education was profoundly imprinted on Japan's modern education. But, in fact, multiple alternative proposals for developing modern education were put forth in the mid-Meiji period. One such proposal was the ethics ("rinri") education promoted by the…

Between 1916 and 1918, a group of Chinese intellectuals opened a school in Paris for Chinese workers who came to Europe in aid of the Allied cause. One of them, Cai Yuanpei, created a textbook based on lectures he gave at the school, which included chapters on moral and intellectual topics. This article focuses on two of these chapters -- History…

The Meiji Restoration (1868) ended the Tokugawa Shogunate regime (1603-1867) and proclaimed the emperor as the supreme power of Japan. The Meiji emperor's reign began abruptly, requiring restoration leaders to construct an emperor-centred ideology of whole cloth. This ideology posited an eternal imperial Japan: a unique, tight-knit community of…

This paper investigates the representation of social values and their ontogenetic development in English as a foreign language textbooks in Hong Kong. Adopting a social semiotic approach, it considers social values in textbooks as semantic categories which are constructed by complex semiotic discursive resources, and develops an explicit framework…

This paper explores how notions of race, ethnicity, and blood are mobilized in educational texts in Hong Kong. It elaborates how civic identity is racialized as part of a nationalist education operating beneath the surface of expressed commitments to global citizenship, human rights, etc., in curriculum and textbooks. Many have commented on how…

Korea faces a unique and complicated situation in becoming multicultural. Modern Korean education has changed several times in response to the contextual shifts which have occurred in the country's demographic composition. Given the complex social circumstances which exist in Korean society, this paper explores how the social ideologies of…